How does Scott Brooks handle his rotation this season?

Everybody is asking the question. Who does a shortened season benefit? And they’ll probably be asking it about 500 more times come the first official media availability for each team.

There are two schools of thought, both correct: 1) A shortened season helps older teams because the season is shorter and there are fewer games, meaning less opportunity for wear and tear over the long haul of 82 games. And 2) A shortened season helps younger teams because 66 games will be piled into four and a half months meaning back-to-back-to-backs, five games in six days and a lot of nights with heavy legs and ice baths.

This type of situation puts a lot of pressure on coaches. They’ve got to get creative with rotations and maybe even consider using the depth of their roster a bit more. If you’re team is sleepwalking into the fifth game in six nights with a roadie in Toronto, you might have to consider dusting off that seldom used rookie or token veteran on the end of your bench.

Which of course begs the question for Thunder fans: How will Scott Brooks handle this?

Know this first of all: Brooks is pretty stubborn when it comes to playing time and his rotation. He was strangely committed to a nine-man rotation in 2009-10 and never considered wavering from that. He was stuck with the same setup last season before Daequan Cook rose from the dead and hit a couple 3-pointers.

Stick with the 10-man, but judge minutes more judiciously? A shortened season means less minutes so you expand out and flex a little? Or because OKC’s young do you just let them go?

The Thunder are at that point where they should probably consider the postseason some in late February. Meaning, instead of committing to winning a road game in New Jersey, maybe let KD rest a little longer than usual in the fourth and see if Westbrook can shoulder the load for a win.

How did the rotation break down last season? Most of the time, like this:

But again, add a new faces in Reggie Jackson and the fact the season is compressed and you wonder if that would change. Harden will likely be starting meaning his minutes will probably go somewhere into the 30+ range. Thabo’s minutes will likely go into the 17-20 range. And there’s where Brooks would likely have a bit of wiggle room to fit in Jackson.

That’s a rough guess, but I do see a good reason to trim down on minutes. It makes sense for a lot of reasons, but not just because the season will be more stressful.

Is it necessary to expand the rotation? I don’t think so. Last season we all wondered how Cole Aldrich would fit in. In the end, he didn’t. And that will likely again be the case for players like Jackson and Aldrich. Maybe there’s more opportunity to try and cut back during a fourth game in five nights during March, but I don’t see it happening much. The Thunder aren’t an aging team like the Celtics or Spurs. They’re built to handle this schedule.

But I do think Brooks will want to shuffle Jackson in and out of the rotation. If Harden does indeed start, there is the feeling to have a little more punch off the bench. Thabo, Maynor and Cook aren’t really giving you that, but Jackson could. The only way to find out if he’s capable is to play him. Maybe he’s ready for a shot, maybe not. We’ll see.

Playing time is a difficult thing to manage. You’re a better team when Durant and Westbrook and Harden are on the floor because they’re your best players. But a great asset to a good team is depth and Oklahoma City has some.

This will probably be a pretty challenging couple weeks for Brooks as he tries to figure out where and how to place minutes. Thabo can slide over and be more of a natural backup to Durant to help bring those minutes down some more. Playing Maynor more isn’t a problem. Same goes for Collison or Mohammed. The issue is how deep do you go and at what cost do you value how fresh and ready your team is compared to how good the group on the floor is.

Harden 26.7 mpg, Thabo 25.9...uggghhhh....that's my biggest fear of Brooks. I like the 31 mpg listed next to James name as a projection...and that might be too little. KP health and Harden's mpg are the biggest storylines for me.

I have a feeling that Brooks will want to work in some playing time for Aldrich in the 5th game in 6 night scenarios or in our back-to-back-to-back since he could use some playing time. It'll get harder and harder to keep playing Perkins because of injury history, Collison because he just lays it all out on the floor every time he steps on the court, and Mohammed because he's just plain old. Bringing in some fresh legs in Aldrich, considering his size, will probably help us stay strong on the boards at the beginning of the 4th of those really tiring games before you bring in Collison again.

Well we won't use an 11 man rotation, but some bench players might play more.

We probably should give some guys a game off here and there to give them extra rest. like on the 26th give nazr the day off and play aldrich instead or play collison extra mins at center. So against not good teams some of the bench rotation sits and against good teams if we are winning the normal bench players play extended mins so the starters get extra rest.

Also if we are up by 20 with 7 mins left we should go full bench and save the starters mins.

Great article. I think another part of the intrigue will be the actual substitution pattern. Harden, Cook and Maynor (along with Collison and Mohammad) developed quite a nice chemistry last year. I think part of the reason is that none of those guys dominate the ball as much as Westbrook and Durant so the ball moves a lot quicker against the other teams backups. I think they can still get that rotation a decent amount of minutes if Harden is the first one out at around the seven minute mark of the first quarter and he comes back in after the first quarter when KD and Russ take a rest. I'm excited to see how Brooks handles the rotation.

The other thing I'm excited to see if is Serge has been able to improve his footwork on D. He had awful foot work last year in the low post. That should be an easy fix with a lot of reps. If he can improve that aspect he can be a dominating all around defender. There is no way Nick Collison should be a better low post defender than Serge with his athleticism. Hopefully he got a little better in the offseason.